Fall manure application: Plans, resources & strategies for Minnesota farmers
Hello and welcome back to the Nutrient Management Podcast from University of Minnesota Extension. I'm Jack Wilcox in communications here with Extension.
Jack Wilcox:And today, we look ahead to the fall manure application season. What should growers keep in mind regarding preparation, farmer safety, and then what are some useful resources farmers should know about?
Jack Wilcox:We have four manure nutrient management specialists here with us today. Why don't you each introduce yourselves?
Melissa Wilson:Hi, I'm Melissa Wilson. I'm an associate professor and extension specialist in manure nutrient management.
Chryseis Modderman:I'm Chryseis Modderman, extension educator with the University of Minnesota. I focus on manure management. I'm office way out in Western Minnesota.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:Nancy Bohl Bormann. I'm a University of Minnesota researcher in Manure and Nutrient Management.
Eduardo Garay:Eduardo Garay, On Farm Research Manager at the University of Minnesota in the Manure Management team.
Jack Wilcox:Melissa and Chryseis, let's start with you. What needs to be on a farmer's to do list to prepare for fall application?
Melissa Wilson:I think one of the big things we always like to think about is what do you need to get ready for the season? One, you should always be looking, like, check your equipment, make sure that's all ready to go. Two, think about your manure management plan or thinking about calculating your rates. One of the important things to think about there is sampling. So make sure you have your sample bottles ready, you know where you're gonna what lab you're gonna send it to.
Melissa Wilson:Sometimes if you reach out to the lab, they'll actually have little kits that they can send you for sampling. They always prefer that because it's usually in plastic, or they have extra plastic bags. They'll send you plastic containers possibly, and that's always better for sending back through the mail to get to the lab rather than using glass or using the soda bottle that you have laying in your cap. All of those things we've actually seen go into labs, and the lab, folks are not necessarily amused by that. So getting, your containers ready to sample is always good.
Melissa Wilson:Making sure you have your fields ready, like what fields you know you're going to apply on, and when you think you're if you're doing a custom application, when they think they'll be able to get to you, kind of talking to them already, or if you're applying yourself, thinking about when you're gonna get into the specific fields that you wanna apply in, that sort of thing. So really it's just having a plan in place and being flexible because having a plan at least gets you started and thinking about where things can go, and then being flexible because, you know, the weather is always throwing wrenches into our best lead plans.
Chryseis Modderman:And then I was just gonna talk a little bit about safety because it's always a good time to think about safety in the manure world and just farming in general. And as we move into the fall season and we're starting to ramp up and get ready for these big busy times of our seasons, Safety is always at the forefront of the mind, and having emergency response plan for that is really important. For manure gases, you hear about, you know, manure gases being a a challenge, a a a big safety problem. The two that I always tell people to worry about most are hydrogen sulfide. Right?
Chryseis Modderman:That is the one that's that can be the real that can really do some damage. You know? You can have irritation and issues as low levels as point one parts per million. Like, it doesn't take much for there to start being irritation. And a lot of the pit injuries that you see or pit deaths are actually drowning cases where they've passed out from gas, probably hydrogen sulfide inhalation.
Chryseis Modderman:They've passed out, and they end up drowning in that in that pit. And some people seem to think that maybe the belowground pits, the confinement barns, those are the ones where you really gotta worry about that hydrogen sulfide. That's those are the the big ones, and they are for sure. Absolutely. But open pits can also have those same gases circling around them.
Chryseis Modderman:If you've ever worn a a gas monitor next to an open pit while it's being agitated and it starts beeping, you're saying, oh, it's open air. You know, there's plenty of ventilation here. But, you know, not always, and those gases can kinda sneak up on you. So having a gas monitor, like I mentioned, is is important for that aspect of safety. Another gas that I also tell people to worry about a little bit is methane.
Chryseis Modderman:We know manure produces high amounts of methane, and that can be a flammability risk. So when you're, you know, getting ready for fall and you've got all this stuff, you gotta get ready, your your tractor, your hoses, your pumps, your your making sure everything's on the go. Don't neglect those safety things either. You know? Make sure that, you know, livestock or people aren't gonna be around those basins or underground pits when you're gonna be pumping them.
Chryseis Modderman:Think about ventilation. What's how is the best way to get your either your barn or your pit area ventilated if you need that. For that methane risk, you know, electrical equipment that may cause sparks, make sure any anything like that is disconnected around your manure pumping equipment and having gas monitors, and then having, you know, your proper signage up, make sure people are communicating with each other, and make sure all your employees are trained. And I mentioned the emergency response plan, and if you are in the state of Minnesota, if you're a permitted facility, and I suppose those are federal permits, the NPDES is what I mean, and the SDS permit, you're required to have the emergency response plan. Right?
Chryseis Modderman:So you have that. But I recommend everyone to have one. You know? Even if you're a smaller operation, it's important for your your farm, your your well-being, the well-being of your employees and family. And if you you don't know what to put on that or or what to do, you can just, you know, Google manure emergency response plan, and there's plenty of options out there.
Chryseis Modderman:There's the one from the MPCA that the permitted sites use that you can just adopt and use as well, and it's got the number for the duty officer on there in case you have a spill incident that you need to call the duty officer and and deal with that. So just, you know, keep safety in mind as we come into the manure season, the the best season of the year.
Jack Wilcox:Who needs to be on the emergency response plan?
Chryseis Modderman:Right. So the emergency response plan, you know, it has the duty officer phone number on there, which is a +1 800 number. But then, you know, you've also got, obviously, 911 is an important number to have. But then, you know, your local fire and ambulance, your county sheriff numbers, you know, your county feedlot officer, if you're working with one of those, it might be nice to have that number on there, or the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency or whoever your regulator is that may need to be contacted or other safety. On the emergency response plan that even lists, you know, a place to put the number for your insurance company or the phone number you call when you wanna dig under underground.
Chryseis Modderman:What's that called? The the gopher line or whatever? You're gonna dig, you should call that number. You know, just anything that you're gonna need. You can also list vendors on there.
Chryseis Modderman:The permitted site emergency response plan also kinda has a list of things to tell the duty officer. So when you call the duty officer, you know you need to tell them your contact information, where this incident happened, the location, date, and time, what you know, how much was spilled, what type of spill, what what have you done to try to mitigate that spill already. And there's also, you know, other information on there for, you know, if there's a manure spill emergency or catastrophic animal mortality. They also have information on there for that.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:You know, Chryseis mentioned, like, if you have to call in, making sure that you have the physical address listed on that emergency response plan are in a very visible place because, you know, these applicators are traveling around and making sure they can at least have the address, what farm they're on, I think is super important at a minimum.
Chryseis Modderman:Yeah. Absolutely. That too. And and having or, you know, a way to describe your fields, you know, that don't have a
Nancy Bohl Bormann:A legal description. Yeah. Farm contacts as well, making sure those phone numbers. Yeah. Someone's not around, who can I also call if they have questions?
Jack Wilcox:What kinds of personal protective equipment should farmers keep nearby?
Chryseis Modderman:Safety supplies are gonna vary based on what you're doing. Right? And what your operations entails. You know? If you regularly need to go down into a pit, like, to clean it out or or whatever after it's been pumped, that's a confined space entry as they call it.
Chryseis Modderman:And, you know, a a self supported breathing apparatus for that would be amazing. Not everyone's gonna have that. You know? They're gonna if if they're sending someone down into those confined spaces, even crawling inside of a tanker is considered a confined space. Right?
Chryseis Modderman:But, you know, sometimes, you know, people feel the need to do that, and it's maybe not the most safe thing. And if you have a self sustained breathing apparatus for your company or you can hire someone to do that for you, that is much safer because sometimes those gases are lingering. Even though the manure is gone, there there could be some of that as well.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:And even signage you can put on doors, like, you know, if you're agitating in a deep pit, you know, so employees or other people know not to enter this, you know, barn during the pumping time so they're aware of it, I think, also important.
Chryseis Modderman:And the fence all the way around your your pit is in good condition. I feel like that gets neglected sometimes too.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:Manure pit covers making sure they're in good condition as well.
Jack Wilcox:Melissa, getting back to sampling, how much lead time does a lab typically need before they can return your sample results?
Melissa Wilson:That's a good question. It kind of comes back to sampling strategies, and there's usually two. There's one where you try to collect a sample beforehand so that you can send it to the lab and get it back in time to make decisions. The other option is to wait until you're loading and then take the samples in and then send them out. In that case, the manure is probably mixed a lot better or it's agitated a lot better, so you get a lot you kinda know more about what's going out to the field, but you don't get it back in time to make decisions for that year, but it does help you plan for the next year.
Melissa Wilson:So once you get it back, you know what rate you applied, you can figure out how much was applied. If you were lower for your nutrients than you thought, you can then go back and add more. Otherwise, thinking about kind of the long term strategies. If you're sending it ahead of time, you might get it back to make decisions, and that's kind of useful. Like, if you have a pretty consistent manure source, sending it ahead of time might not necessarily matter.
Melissa Wilson:But if it's something like you had a lot you have outdoor storage and you had a lot more rain than usual this year, maybe you wanna sample it because it's gonna be a lot more dilute. Or if you had a leak in the barn and you're have a deep pit and you had a leak that diluted a lot of the manure, that might be different. Or you had a completely different feed source this year, different nutritionist, that sort of thing, sending it ahead of time might get you some good results that can help you make the decisions for this fall. In that case, just making sure you're trying to get as representative as you can. If it's a deep pit, there are those, like, PVC pipes with a rubber ball at the end and a string attached to it that you can kinda get down and get the whole depth of the pit.
Melissa Wilson:Those can be useful. Or if you're doing a big pile of turkey litter, attempting as much as you can to get, you know, some samples from the middle of the pile, kind of the outsides but not the surface, dig into it a little bit of the pile, little bit towards the top, a little bit towards the bottom, that's all helpful as well. And we do have some videos online for some ideas of how to sample some of these sorts of things.
Jack Wilcox:As far as sending samples to the lab, what practices should you follow?
Melissa Wilson:I would say they don't necessarily need to be sterilized just because you are putting manure in them, unless there was something weird in them to begin with. One thing, like, we've actually seen instances where people maybe had a bucket where they had some fertilizer in it, and then they put manure in it and send it in as a sample, And that literally altered the nutrient content, and they got the manure sample back, and it said it had, like, ridiculous amounts of nitrogen in it. So, like, a clean something that's cleaned out, really well rinsed out is good. You don't wanna quick dump your soda and have a bit of it at the bottom and then put manure in it and then send it to the lab because, you know, soda has nutrients in it too. So that's important.
Melissa Wilson:And then I guess you did ask me about the lead time, like, lab how fast can these labs get back to you. I would say definitely try to send your manure samples to them. If you can, refrigerated, frozen, send them so that they get there maybe the next day. Don't send them on a Friday because then they might not get to the lab on Monday, and they're sitting in a, you know, potentially hot mail truck or wherever they're sitting. So try to get them to it quickly, and then I say a lot of them get back to you in two to three days.
Melissa Wilson:Definitely, like, within a week, most of them will get back to you unless they're really swamped, I'd say, in my experience. Of course, it might be different in different areas of the country, but that's kind of what we're seeing here.
Jack Wilcox:Nancy, if you plan to work with a commercial applicator, how should you set yourself up ahead of time so that the process goes well?
Nancy Bohl Bormann:A big thing to think about is, number one, trying to communicate in advance as much as you can and get them all the information so they have ready to go so they can kind of plan logistically, you know, what order of farms they need to travel in. I mean, number one, you want to share how full your mineral storage is. You know, this year, we have gotten good amount of precipitation in different parts of the state. You know? And so and also just taking a look and monitoring your own storages.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:You know, how how much more room do you even have? Are you gonna need to be sooner in the fall, or can you make it, you know, later later on? I think that's a, you know, just a logistical issue. Then getting a list of fields, getting those application rates that you want for those fields and crops you're going to use. It's going to be important.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:Is there contact information they'll need for a farm manager, perhaps a few of other staff? You know, with the safety parts, you know, are do you want them to contact you or who call before they come so you can let your farm staff know if there's multiple, you know, workers? I think another thing, I have a lot of experience in the swine world, and one thing we were always concerned with too is when are these hog barns turning? So, like, when are they emptying out with market hogs, and when are they gonna get little pigs in? Because the little pigs could be more sensitive to the agitation and those gases.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:So sometimes, you know, like, if we just have, you know, got some little weaned pigs in, you know, we may try to hold off on pumping that manure beforehand or trying to pump before they come when the barn's empty. You know, that's always even better, you're not having to worry about the pigs in the barn. So that can be another, you know, logistical thing to think about.
Melissa Wilson:That kind of brings up a question of biosecurity as well. Is there anything people should be thinking about for biosecurity with manure pumping, particularly in these kind of large situations or with commercial?
Nancy Bohl Bormann:Yes. I'd say especially on some of those genetic or sow farms or ones that are definitely more sensitive to disease issues. That would be another thing if you're hiring a manure applicator to communicate what your status is. You know? Say, hey.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:I'd really like to have be earlier again in the season or later or have some downtime or so that's definitely something to think about on. And things we if you're working with multiple farms, you know, we've definitely you know, several years ago when PED was a big deal, you know, tried to say which ones were negative or positive in which order we prefer, you know, them to travel to the different barns at. Yeah, definitely things to think about on the bio security end or or even ask if there's certain procedures that you would like and if they will accommodate that.
Melissa Wilson:And I think that's the one thing in the manure world is suddenly we're thinking about not just nutrients. Right? I know this is a nutrient management podcast, but it's tied into all of these other things when it when you bring manure into it.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:Yeah. PED is porcine epidemic diarrhea. So it's one of the type of coronavirus, actually.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:If you're applying manure onto a neighbor's farm, for example, or it's getting not on fields that you farm, making sure you have the manure application agreements, you know, signed and this plan communicated with your neighbors in advance. And also on your farm and other people's farm, making sure your soil samples are current and that you have a plan for fall soil sampling also to keep your runner management plan in compliance.
Jack Wilcox:Let's talk about on farm testing. What would you tell an interested grower about how to test different rates and other variables?
Melissa Wilson:Yeah. On farm research is always I'm I'm a bit of a nerd, so I always promote it. If you're thinking about doing different application rates or, like, with manure, you kinda get n p and k all in one lump. You don't necessarily it's not customized like fertilizer is. So we can kind of choose different rates that we might wanna apply at.
Melissa Wilson:So if you're thinking about, like, maybe I wanna apply a phosphorus based rate, and then I'll know, like, nitrogen will probably be lower, and I can come back and side dress versus just applying a nitrogen based rate. Like, there's all kinds of questions you could do. Are there additives that you're thinking about applying? Are you looking at throwing cover crops into the rotation, but you kinda wanna know how it's gonna work in your operation? Testing all of these things is a great idea, and we have some advice for on farm things.
Melissa Wilson:Like one, really define your question and really think about doing some, like, randomized strips across a field to see how it works, and you'll always wanna have at least one treatment that's, like, your standard operating procedure. Like, what's a normal practice that you do? And then have some strips where you add in something else. And then kinda keep it simple. It's like that KISS acronym, keep it simple stupid.
Melissa Wilson:But you wanna do something like throw in cover crops in that particular area or, use a nitrification inhibitor in just a few small strips in the area to see if that helps. And make sure your equipment's, of course, that you're applying the manure, think about how it fits in with your tractor size for your harvesting, like, can you harvest in just that strip so that you can actually get the yields and see if there's a yield difference in those things. It's something that can be kind of fun and exciting on your farm and, yeah, has extra logistics, but I think it can really give you important information about your farm, your conditions, your soils, your weather, that sort of thing. And actually, we have an on farm research program that we're starting up for manure management practices. So Eduardo is actually here to talk a little bit about that.
Melissa Wilson:He's gonna be helping to run that program with farmers across the state.
Eduardo Garay:Yeah. That's right. That's actually a great segue. And, you know, just as Melissa was saying right now, like, we're actually quite excited to start this new program right now. So we're looking actually to work with farmers that are interested in conducting on farm research.
Eduardo Garay:We're particularly interested within the Southeast, Southwest Region of Minnesota, but as well, you know, kinda like looking into the opportunities, South Central Minnesota as well. More importantly, I think that kind of, like, the really exciting part about this, and and I'm happy that you mentioned that, by the way, Melissa, first, like, kind of, like, the nerdy nos, kind of, like, trying to understand and dig dig deeper dig deeper on these questions that we have. I've come to learn, you know, kind of, like, interacting with multiple farmers, you know, like, throughout my position that they all are, like, really great land stewards naturally. They all are really proud about what they're doing as well. That's, like, a common denominator that I've seen.
Eduardo Garay:And second of all, you know, like an important quote that I got the other day that I really love, you know, it's like, you know, we're out here farming. For sure, you know, we wanna be mindful of the environment and kind of like the impact that we have at the same time. Because, like, we are in here, you know, we're stuck in this place. We have probably like been farming these land throughout the last couple of generations, and we wanna make sure that, you know, this is actually a great place so that we can pass along to the future generations. So, you know, there's something really meaningful and valuable on that that I feel that whenever you pair it up with trying to conduct a sound scientific research at the same time, you can really get some important insights out of it.
Eduardo Garay:And more importantly, you know, kind of like as Melissa always says, because we're scientists, we always wanna go above and beyond. So there's nothing as having, specific recommendations from different regions of the state that I can actually tell tell us what these different practices are actually doing in different regions of the state. Right? Like, animal dependence as well, different internal variability that we have weather wise as well in these different regions. So it all comes into the mix to really informing the best management practices that we can have for, you know, improving overall manure management.
Eduardo Garay:So we're really excited about that project overall. And by the way, you know, kind of like a small advertisement for all of our listeners, if you have, you know, kind of like a farmer, a neighbor, someone that you know that might actually be interested in conducting these on farm trials, please reach out to me. I'm definitely going to add our contact information within the description of this video. I'm sure about it, Jack. We're on the lookout for farmers that are interested in learning more, digging deeper as we'd like to say as well, and just going knee deep on manure.
Melissa Wilson:That was funny. Knee deep in manure. We do always joke that no one stands behind our work because it's so stinky, but that's for another day. We can do all kinds of puns for this. Right now, we are definitely focused on looking at, like, best management practices for manure application, management, etcetera, and our focus is on kind of land application side of things.
Melissa Wilson:So right now we're not necessarily focusing on how additives might affect manure storage or something like that. If we're looking at how additives might affect nutrient availability once it's land applied, like, maybe we could kinda talk about that. So just some clarifying things about what we're actually looking for here.
Jack Wilcox:Nancy, can you give us an update on ManureDB, And maybe could you tell us how farmers can use that manure database?
Nancy Bohl Bormann:Sure. We've been working the last few years at the University of Minnesota on this Manure database project we call ManureDB. You can find it, just put it in your favorite search engine, ManureDB, and you will find it. We've been working with multiple laboratories across the country that analyze manure and other organic amendments. And we have been aggregating this data to try to see what are, you know, modern manure characteristics.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:So this effort has been going. We have over half a million samples in our database today. There's a way you can do some different data visualizations to kinda get an idea of the range of nutrients you can see in different kinds of manures. If you're really interested, you can even download the data and look at it in a way you prefer. We're definitely saying not to, you know, replace this with manure sampling, but, you know, it can be a way to benchmark against your farm's manure or also just to show the wide variation.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:Alright. You look like not all manures are the same. There's definitely different water management, you know, treatments. You know, are you doing, like, a dairy, different solid separation, or different bedding levels? All kinds of different ways people are using their manure and across the country, you know, seeing quite the wide range.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:So it is a definitely unique resource in that way, and it is now publicly available. So please check it out.
Melissa Wilson:One of the things that Nancy mentioned is benchmarking your own operations. I think this is a really cool aspect that we hadn't really previously considered, but this is a way for you to see what's kind of normal in your region or, like, what ranges you can expect. So if you get on there and you find out your nitrogen is twice as high as most of the, you know, hog barns or dairy operations in the region, it can really tell you something about your manure, like what management strategies are they using that you're not using. Are there ways to change that? So either bring your like, maybe you don't need to feed as much nitrogen or phosphorus or whatever it is, or maybe it's just that your manure is less dilute than a lot of other people's because your water management is different.
Melissa Wilson:So it is kind of a way, like she said, to benchmark what you're doing in your operation and how it may be different or similar to what else is going on in the area.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:One other neat feature of ManureDB is that we accepted other pretty much as it was labeled any kind of animal type. So, yes, while it the majority does include a lot of the livestock and poultry groups that you'd think of, you know, beef, dairy, swine, different poultry ones, it also includes some of these other animals that you may not see that much literature about manure values for. So, you know, we've had some questions about some unique animals, but, you know, if you are more interested in, for example, sheep or horse manure or alpaca or some other not traditional livestock species, you know, that is also something that it could be, you know, a tool reference for.
Melissa Wilson:Yeah. I think there's some rat. We have a good bit of rat manure that we we've seen in there. I think sometimes elephant or giraffe,
Nancy Bohl Bormann:I think. We've had, yeah, some different zoo animals too, you know, and other organic amendments as well. Like, you think about livestock truck washes. You know, there's manure in that bedding or some of the other silage leachate. You know?
Nancy Bohl Bormann:There's all these other different organic amendments that are getting captured and applied to fields, and people want to know what the nutrients are. So, yeah, we can figure out the label. We'll try to do our best, you know, to get it categorized appropriately.
Jack Wilcox:What are some specific questions that growers have been asking you? What's on their minds?
Melissa Wilson:So some of the questions that we've been getting recently deals a lot with thinking about the variability in manure and how they can manage for that. That's kind of one of the reasons why we certainly promote testing your manure to kinda get a baseline of what you're even working with. And two, thinking about best management strategies for getting the manure applied is important because when we think about availability factors, that's with the understanding that you're already using best management practices. So, like, for instance, swine manure we say is gonna be 80% available the first year, and that's assuming that you're not having significant losses because you applied it, really early in the fall, for instance, and then there were losses due to it being a wet fall, it being warm, those sorts of things. So trying to use your best management practices and keeping those nutrients in place, whether it's use of cover crops, nitrification inhibitors, getting applied when it's cool, getting it applied closer to when the crop needs it, all of those things can help reduce some of the variability that we see.
Melissa Wilson:Also know it's manure, it's a natural thing that happens and weather is a natural thing that happens too and can really affect a lot of the availability that we see in any given year.
Chryseis Modderman:And something I've been getting questions about is just generally about tillage in manure, and people are still interested in that and how to marry the no till world with manure because, right, we're telling you to till your manure into the soil, get it under the soil surface. How does that fit with soil health? Things that could be a whole another podcast topic, Jack. We could talk for another year about that. I tell people that it's there's not a magic bullet that any amount of soil that you can get on top of the manure is gonna save you some from volatilization losses, some of that, at least, you know, any amount helps.
Chryseis Modderman:Minimally invasive tillage equipment and and low disturbance injectors help, and that it's not such a black and white issue maybe, and there's maybe some gray area in there.
Melissa Wilson:The other thing about some tillage sometimes, even if you get it in, you know, once every couple of years, does help break up the you see a lot of nutrients will start accumulating on the surface, for instance. So that I can't remember the word. Stratification.
Chryseis Modderman:Yeah. Phosphorus stratification.
Melissa Wilson:So So stratification can be problematic because that actually increases how much might run off your soil then in large rainfalls. So getting that stratification broken up at least every couple of years can be beneficial to your fields. It's not necessarily like a no till never, but maybe like a once till, minimal till, every once in a while kind of situation in the in yardage.
Chryseis Modderman:I I heard someone call it no till. It's spelled k n o w. No till. Know when to till.
Melissa Wilson:One thing I'd like to mention too is the timing aspect as we're coming into this fall. Thinking about waiting until soil temperatures are cool can be beneficial because it helps preserve nutrients. Realize though that just because soil temperatures are cool and we usually reference 50 degrees Fahrenheit doesn't mean that nutrient transformations have stopped completely because bacteria are still working. They can work down to even sometimes below freezing, but it does slow it down drastically. So anytime you can wait to get your manure applied later in the fall or waiting until the spring even can be beneficial in regards to the nutrient management aspect of it.
Melissa Wilson:If you need to go a little bit before temperatures are 50 degrees, you can use, like, a nitrification inhibitor if it's a liquid manure. I don't think they work as well with solid manures, but for liquid manures, can work well. Thinking about cover crops, we've had pretty decent luck with injecting liquid manures underneath a growing cover crop. So that way you could get the cover crop hopefully established earlier and then get the manure applied later. Even with solid manures, sometimes if you do a real light tillage, that something like rye might still be fine.
Melissa Wilson:Like, it might mess it up a little bit, but sometimes it can still reroot and grow if it's not buried too deep just because rye is one of those pretty hardy crops. It's still something we're working on with solid manure certainly, but that's something to think about is that timing aspect.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:And just another thing going into winter, like, are you is your storage empty enough to make it to the spring so we're you're not having to deal with these winter applications when we have snow and frozen soils? There's definite different restrictions on those things. So, you know, monitoring again your winter storage levels and making sure you can get through the time period you need to.
Jack Wilcox:Are there any final thoughts for manure application this fall?
Melissa Wilson:Final thoughts, I think, are make sure you have a plan in place, whether it's thinking about where you're gonna apply the manure or it's thinking about safety. It's like now is the time to start thinking about all these things so that you have it in place so that when it's go time, you're ready to go, and you don't have to sit down and do all those calculations or find the equipment that you need for your safety kit, that sort of thing.
Jack Wilcox:Melissa Wilson, Chryseis Modderman, Nancy Bohl Bormann, and Eduardo Garay, thank you for this great information.
Nancy Bohl Bormann:Thank you.
Eduardo Garay:Thank you so much, Jack.
Jack Wilcox:Do you have a question about something on your farm? Just send us an email here at nutmgmt@umn.edu. Thanks a lot for listening, and we look forward to seeing you next time.
Jack Wilcox:We'd like to thank the Agricultural Fertilizer Research and Education Council or AFREC for supporting the podcast.
